John Simpson (architect)

John Simpson CVO RIBA^[1] (born 9 November 1954), is a British architect, designer and urban planner working in the Classical Tradition.

Simpson attended The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, United Kingdom.^[2]  He is Principal of John Simpson Architects, based in London, and a visiting professor at the School of Architecture at Cambridge University^[3].

Simpson is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Simpson is part of the New Classical Architecture movement of contemporary architects designing in classical styles. A profile of Simpson's design for his own house featured on the Sky Arts programme The Art of Architecture in 2019.^[4]

• The Royal College of Music, London - new recital rooms, recording studios, a museum and other facilities, opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2021^[5], and received the Georgian Group Diaphoros Prize in 2024^[6] and the RIBA London Award 2025^[7][8]
• The Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre, the new national facility for rehabilitation medicine at Stanford Hall near Loughborough where injured services personnel are treated.  This facility was opened jointly by HRH The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge^[9].
• The new School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame (known as Walsh Family Hall of Architecture, University of Notre Dame (2019)) in Indiana, USA, the world’s leading institution teaching architects Classical Architecture which was completed in 2020.^[10]
• Masterplan for the area around St Paul's Cathedral, London (1992–1996).
• The new University Arms Hotel, Cambridge which was opened in 2018.^[11]
• The West Range of Gonville Court, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (1993–1996)^[12]
• Masterplan and new buildings at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (2010–2017), providing improved facilities for undergraduates and graduates through a series of quadrangles.  The final phase was completed in 2017.^[13]
• Masterplan and new buildings at Peterhouse, the oldest college at the University of Cambridge, opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2015.^[14]
• New buildings at McCrum Yard, a new quadrangle at Eton College,^[15] involving several new schools as well as a debating chamber modelled on the Ekklesiasterion or council chamber at Ancient Priene and a new museum for Greek and Egyptian antiquities at the Jafar Gallery which was opened in 2015 by HRH The Prince of Wales.^[16]
• New museum at Kensington Palace, opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.  ^[17]
• The Carhart Mansion on East 95^th Street, New York city, completed in 2006, which joined two Landmark Buildings together to form luxury apartments.^[18]
• The King’s Gallery (formerly the Queen’s Gallery) at Buckingham Palace involving several new gallery spaces^[19] for the Royal Collection which was opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2002.^[20] 
• The Brownsword Building at Poundbury, completed in 1999^[21] which was the first public building to be built,^[22] providing community facilities and a covered market space in Pummery Square.
• Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge.  The project involved the remodelling of the oldest part of the college and added new extensions to the West Range of Gonville Court, opened HRH The Prince of Wales in 1998.^[23]
• Masterplan for Fairford Leys, a village outside Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
• Simpson first came to prominence in 1990 with his masterplan for Paternoster Square by St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London.  Championed by the then Prince of Wales, he put together and submitted a counter proposal to the City of London proposing a mix of uses, restoring the urban grain around the cathedral, and allowing the dome of St Pauls to dominate the skyline surrounded by the spires and towers of the churches as Christopher Wren intended.^[24][25] Simpson submitted for planning consent with the planning fee paid by the London Evening Standard.^[26]  Simpson’s design for Paternoster Square was featured in the Prince of Wales’s book ‘A Vision of Britain’ and exhibition at the V&A and was adopted by an Anglo-American partnership of developers made up of Greycoat and Park Tower Realty of New York ^[27].  Although the buildings were never built, Park Tower having unfortunately fallen victim to the Property crash in the 1990s, the project served its purpose, and kick started the Traditional Classical movement setting a new direction for planning in Britain.^[28]

An extract from the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Architecture, compiled by Professor James Stevens Curl, reads:

“English architect. Having rejected International Modernism, he sought to show how the classical language of architecture could be used in contemporary economic, technical and functional requirements.......Simpson had considerable influence in making the public aware of New Classicism in the 1980s, especially with the exhibition Real Architecture (opened in 1987 by HRH Prince Charles). His works at Gonville and Caius College, at the University of Cambridge (1994-98), have added lustre to his reputation. The Brownsword Hall and Market, the first public building to be built at Prince of Wales’s development in Poundbury, was completed in 2000. In 1998 his firm won the competition to redevelop the Queen’s (now the King’s) Gallery, and the Royal Kitchens at Buckingham Palace, London which was completed in time for the opening of Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee Celebrations in 2002. Since then, the practice has been commissioned to carry out work in the USA and has worked on a number of buildings on the upper East side of Manhattan and on 5th Avenue in New York. The first, the Carhart was completed in 2005, has been described by the Landmarks Commission of New York as the first Traditionally Classical Building to be built in the city since the 1960’s and for which he was awarded the Palladio prize in 2007.”

In the opening introduction of his book The Architecture of John Simpson, the timeless language of Classicism, Professor David Watkin says:

“……..  His buildings are at once fresh and original yet are conceived as contributions to the classical and traditional architecture that has been at the heart of Western Civilisation for approaching two thousand years…….Simpson draws into a [architectural] language of his own many sources from Greek and Roman architecture……demonstrating that the classical language is timeless, and thus that architects such as Alberti, Soane, Schinkel and Cockerell, on whom Simpson also draws for inspiration, are as relevant as Bathykles, Mnesicles or Ictinus. In other words, the age of a building is immaterial as regards its claim to beauty. “

• BUILDING BEAUTIFUL, Classical Houses by John Simpson by Clive Aslet, published by Rizzoli 2021.  ISBN 978-0-8478-7063-9^[29]
• THE ACADEMY, celebrating the work of John Simpson by Clive Aslet, published by Triglyph Books, 2020.  ISBN 978-1-9163554-2-2^[30]
• THE ARCHITECTURE OF JOHN SIMPSON, The timeless language of Classicism by Professor David Watkin, published by Rizzoli. 2018. ISBN 978-0-8478-4869-0^[31]
• THE QUEEN’S GALLERY BUCKINGHAM PALACE and other works by Professor David Watkin and Dr Richard John, published by Papadakis. 2002. ISBN 1-901092-39-9^[32]

2021 Simpson was appointed visiting Professor at the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art at the University of Cambridge and a member of the board of the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture at Downing College, Cambridge University. ^[33] He is also visiting fellow at Gonville and Caius College.

In 2019 Simpson was appointed Director of the University of Buckingham Summer School in Architecture and Urban Design.^[34]

In 2018 Simpson was appointed Professor of Architecture at the University of Buckingham.^[35]

Since 2016 Simpson has tutored, been a visiting lecturer and juror at the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame in the United States.^[36]

In 1990s Simpson taught at the King’s Foundation, formerly the Prince of Wales’s Institute for the built Environment.

Simpson received the Arthur Ross Prize for Architecture in 2008.^[37] In honor of his life-long dedication to and outstanding achievements in traditional urbanism and architecture, Simpson was awarded the 2026 laureate of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame.^[38]

Simpson was named the 2026 Richard H. Driehaus Prize winner by University of Notre Dame in January 2026.^[39]

• Richard John and David Watkin, John Simpson; The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace and Other Works. Andreas Papadakis pub, London, 2002.
• David Watkin, The Architecture of John Simpson: The Timeless Language of Classicism. Rizzoli International Publications, 2016.

• John Simpson Architects Ltd